Family Portrait
by Lottielue1
Summary: Something caught her eye in the corner of the room. Upon a closer inspection Hermione glances upon a photograph of young child and a man. From this Hermione learns the not so mysterious circumstances that caused Madam Zabini to be widow seven times.


**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter**

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"Where is he?" Hermione muttered as she searched the halls of Hogwarts, they had precisely one hour and twenty one minutes until they had to deliver the Heads meeting to the other Prefects and there were still things they needed to go through and it just so happened that the Headboy was nowhere in sight. With a sigh Hermione headed back to the Heads common room her patience quickly shrinking the closer she got.

He knew they had things to discuss, she had planned it and had informed him before he had left this afternoon.

"Unity," the door to the common room opened and Hermione stepped inside. "Blaise!" she shouted waiting for a reply, upon hearing nothing in return she wondered up the stairs and knocked on his bedroom door.

"Zabini are you in there?" knocking again the door slid open and she poked her head inside and glanced around. The room was still and nothing seemed out of place. She was about to close the door when something in the corner caught her eye. Pushing the door open Hermione stepped into the room and wandered to the object. Hung on the side of the bedroom mirror was a photograph, intrigued Hermione carefully peeled it off and looked at it closely. Her eyebrows shot into her hairline as she admired the picture in front of her. On the shoulders of a young man was child with bright indigo eyes and a big smile, his black hair was wavy and hung just below his ears. The man was an older version of the young boy, his own eyes reflected warmth and happiness. As Hermione continued to watch the scene unfold in front of her eyes she missed the sound of the common room door open and the footsteps on the stairs.

"Granger, are you? What have you got in your hand?" Startled, Hermione turned at the sound of his voice. Blaise was stood in the door staring at the picture in her hand. His whole posture was tense as he recognised the picture.

"I came - Where have you been? I've been looking for you everywhere – is this a picture of you?" Hermione stepped towards him, the photograph still held tightly in her hand. She handed it to him and he looked at it.

He was quiet for a while staring at the picture now in his hand. "Yes, me and my dad." He said quietly touching the picture with his finger. "He died when I was little, I don't really remember him,"

Hermione said nothing just watching him stare at the picture in his hand. "How did he die?" she asked cautiously.

Blaise said nothing as he sat down on the end of the bed, he patted the spot beside him and Hermione quickly sat.

"Giovani Zabini was my mother's first husband and they met when she was in school, he was a year older than her. They married when she was 19 and she fell pregnant with me at the age of 21. Everything was going great we were happy, my father was a good man he was brave and he loved my mother and me but he was ill. He died at the age of 24 to an incurable Muggle disease, they called it cancer."

"Cancer is a really common disease in the Muggle world, I myself have lost a relative to the disease. In some cases it's curable but it in others it's terminal. I don't really know about the Wizarding world but in the Muggle world we have procedures that can reduce and even cure you of cancer. Though they are painful and they don't always work."

"We didn't know what he died of until he passed away. The Midiwizards in Italy didn't know what it was, after all it was a muggle disease and we are magical they didn't put the pieces together until a Muggleborn read the results of his post-mortem and explained to my mother what it was."

"I thought your mother's maiden name was Zabini but was it your fathers?"

"Zabini is my father's name, every time a husband dies she returns to my father's name." Hermione nodded her head.

"What about husband number two?"

"Husband number two was a Deatheater, mother married him for his wealth and power. After my father died we moved to England, for a fresh start sort of thing and that's where she met him, he was 7 years her senior and was a pureblood extremist, supported You Know Who believed Muggles and Muggleborns should be eradicated and that purebloods should rule. He was a close associate to Lucius Malfoy and that's how Draco and I became friends."

"He sounds lovely," Hermione said sarcastically.

Blaise chuckled softly, "he was alright actually, I actually liked him he was fun to play with and he didn't tell me off as much as my mother. But he could be intimidating, over six foot tall and he was large. I think my mother said he broke another Deatheaters hand in an arm wrestling competition once."

Hermione glanced back at the photograph of Blaise and his dad, "her second husband sounds very different to your father almost the exact opposite in fact."

"He was, I do think that was on purpose, I think she was trying to get over my father's death but giving me a father figure at the same time. There was no confusing Giovani Zabini and Elroy Jugson."

"Wait Elroy Jugson? Is that the man who escaped Azkaban back in our fifth year?"

Blaise shook his head, "Elroy Jugson was the elder brother and was far clever than his younger brother, he was able to escape life imprisonment in Azkaban."

"So how did he die?"

"Not as mysteriously as people believed, he was hit with several different curses in the first Wizarding war and the symptoms were almost unnoticeable but one morning he just didn't wake up. Mother called for St Mungo's and he'd had a cardio arrest in the middle of the night and died. With his brother locked away in Azkaban and there been no blood lost between his parents he left everything to Mother and I. Mother had only been married to him 18 months."

"First husband died of cancer, the second of a cardio arrest, what happened to number three?"

"My second step father was a strange man. Mother decided to look for something different and by doing that she met Chaderick Ridgeway he was an inventor slash experimenter, he was the one that got me interested in potions. My mother had bought a lavish manor of her own by now and it included a potions lab. He was always down there, trying to create new and amazing potions, he declared they'd change the world. Though he was able to sell many of the stuff he made he was never successful in a world changer but he truly loved mother. We were out shopping when he died. I was 8 at the time, and he's the first husband I can actually remember without needing pictures."

"What did he look like?"

"Tall and skinny, he had a long face but really bright blue eyes. He was a little eccentric looking with blonde hair and large rectangular glasses. He was always smiling and he was a cracking story teller, he could keep any child entertained. Draco and I used to go find him and he'd tell us stories and I was fascinated by them, he'd act them out as well. I can remember he did a dinosaur impression and he walked around the main living room pretending to be a dinosaur." Hermione smiled at the image that she was forming in her head but she had noticed a different tone in Blaise's voice. While he spoke of his father and first step father in a neutral tone his voice had saddened a little while he spoke about Chaderick Ridgeway.

"We smelt the smoke as soon as we entered the manor. Mother made me stay in the hallway as she ran towards the lab, he was dead. The potion he'd been brewing had exploded in his face and had killed him."

"That's really sad, he sounds like a good man."

"He was, far better than my mother's fourth husband: Cecil Topilson." Hermione sat patiently as he looked down at his father's photograph. "Husband number four was a dickhead. I hated him from the minute he walked into my life. He made it clear he didn't want me, told me to my face many times and had tried to get mother to send me away. When he discovered that it wasn't going to happen he started to get abusive. I didn't notice what was going on to begin with but then I noticed bruises on Mother's face, she hid them well, told me they were nothing and I believed her until I saw it. He hit her across the face knocking her to the ground and I snapped, my temper got the better of me and I went for him but nothing worked, he hit me, split my lip and I smacked my head on the floor as I fell."

"That's awful, how did you get rid of this arsehole?"

"He started to drink heavily, he'd always been a drinker I can remember my mother complaining about it, about a month into the marriage but as the months passed he started to drink more. It was after a particularly bad beating on the staircase when he was drunk that was his undoing. He went to hit my mother but she ducked, he lost his balance and fell down the stairs, she passed out on the stairs and he was left crumpled at the bottom."

"Where were you when this happened?" Hermione asked horrified, praying he hadn't been in the house when it had happened.

"It was Draco's birthday party and I was sleeping over, Lucius brought me back the next day and that's when we found him on the floor. Lucius checked his pulse while I went in search for mother. Lucius called for Narcissa and she took me back to the manor while he took her to St Mungo's. Neither of us stayed long at his funeral."

"She doesn't have much look in love your mother." Blaise chuckled and nodded.

"It was after his death mother gained the nickname the Black Widow. She didn't see the point in stopping then and she went in search for husband number five. Icarus Escher was an artist from Holland, mother met him at his gallery when I went to Hogwarts for my first year, to be honest I have very little to say about him, I hardly knew him. They married in the November of my first year and he was dead by July. I only met him over Christmas and over Easter. He was alright, a bit of a quiet man though I did find him a little odd."

"Did you attend the wedding?" Blaise shook his head.

"Nar I was in school and I wasn't interested, I can remember telling Draco Malfoy that he'd be dead in a couple of years so what was the point. When he died my mother didn't cry, I think she was just used to it by then."

"How did he die?"

"Ink poison or something like that. He'd bought new paints and the fumes were toxic and he died from inhalation."

"Lovely, so we've had her Childhood Sweetheart, a Deatheater, an Inventor, a Drunk and an Artist. So what did husband number six do?"

"Nothing, he was a very wealthy but old man. He was in his 80's or something but he was head over heels in love for my mother who used him for everything she could. He had no kids and his third wife had just died recently. Charles Templesmith was his name, I found the whole relationship disturbing I mean the man was old enough to be my grandfather, hell even my great grandfather, what my mother was thinking I'll never know but I had little to do with him, didn't care for him really. What was the point I'd given him six to eight months before he popped his clogs."

Hermione shook her head, "How can you care so little for the lives these men have lost?"

"See it in my eyes. My mother has spent almost my entire life trying to find a man to replace my father instead of accepting his fate and getting on with her life. For every man that died I took it hard, until I learnt not to care. It's easier to get on with your life when you don't care about the man who had just died, he's just another face, just another man who was foolish enough to marry my mother."

"Will you ever marry?" she asked cautiously, it was a question that she had been thinking about since he mentioned his second Stepfather.

Blaise sat quietly thinking over what Hermione had said, it wasn't the first time someone had asked him this question. In fact it was a question that was asked frequently by people who knew of his family. Could he marry, would his fate be sealed like his mother's, doomed to loose wife after wife. "No, I don't think I'd take the risk. Random hook-ups and one nighter's will be my future, it's safer that way for everyone."

"Shouldn't love be worth the risk?"

"Shouldn't the ones you love not be doomed to a fate that might or might not exist, if I marry I'll always have that thought hanging over my head. When I close my eyes to go sleep would I see them the next morning. Could I leave and go to the shops knowing that while I'm gone they're dying alone and there is nothing I can do to save them. No, it's safer for me not to marry."

"What happened to Charles Templesmith?" Hermione asked softly, her heart aching for the future he was willing to enslave himself to, he would sacrifice the chance of love and marriage for life. It was sort of romantic and devastating at the same time."

"Died in a fire. Did you hear the news that the Manor was set alight back in our fifth year?" Yes, she did as a matter of fact, she could remember seeing it in the Daily Prophet. The blaze had started in the middle of the night while Madam Zabini was celebrating at a Ministry function. Though it had been treated as suspicious they had no claim on who started the fire. Many believed it to be Madam Zabini but nobody could tie her to the crime, after all she was at the party when the fire had started.

"That's still a mystery to us, his life insurance covered the rebuild of the manor that had been burnt down though. Not really a nice thing to say but not much more to say. He was asleep when he died so he probably didn't even notice."

"Do you think it was a supposed attack on your mother?"

"That was a possibility. After all the same year he died, husband number two's younger brother escaped from Azkaban, he could have been looking for revenge. Who knows?"

"Weird, so that takes us to her last husband, now I know how he died. He was killed by Deatheaters in the war?"

Blaise nodded his head and leant back against the bed. "Perseus Dighton was his name and I didn't like him, he was too much of an ass licker, had his finger in many pies as you Muggle would say. He was in with You Know Who but he tried to be too clever and got himself killed in the process. It was Draco that told me of his death."

"What did he do?"

"He was a spy but was loyal to neither side. Made shit up to the light side and told the same shit to You Know Who but You Know Who discovered his treachery and had him killed. I think it was Antonin Dolohov that finally finished him off. If you're going to play spies then at least know what you're doing."

"I agree, he was foolish to think what he was doing. Unless you were in Voldemort's inner circle it was pointless trying to be a spy he held some trust in his most loyal and that made it easier to get information from him." Blaise nodded in agreement. They sat in silence watching a young Blaise smile down at his father who had reached up to tickle his left side. Blaise giggled and his face lit up in glee as he laughed. "Do you think your mother will marry again?" Hermione finally asked no longer able to look at the picture.

"I hope not but she will, I'm afraid one of these days she'll marry and he'll get rid of her before he dies. I've tried to tell her to be single and for the most part she has, she's not seeing anyone that I know of nor has she been looking for a possible suitor since the war ended. I hope she's learning to be happy on her own."

"I hope she finds happiness," Hermione said taking Blaise's hand in her smaller one. He tensed from the touch but he slowly relaxed in to her hold. He looked at the picture of his father one last time before he hung it back on the wall. As he closed the bedroom door and they made their way to the abandoned classroom holding the meeting he couldn't help but wonder how differently his life would have been if his father hadn't died all those years ago.

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 **Did you like it? This seemed like a great idea to start with but actually it was really hard to write trying to come up with explanations to how Husbands 1-7 died that could possibly frame Madam Zabini at the same time. Very little is actually said about Madam Zabini but to me Blaise's father was always husband number one, and she was searching for some who she could love as much as she loved him. There'd be no way she'd have a child with a man who could die so easily like her other husbands which is why to me her first husband was Blaise's paternal father.**

 **I'd love it if you'd review and tell me what you make of this as there really isn't enough Blaise/Hermione stories out there.**

 **But for now I'll say thank you to all those who have read my story and are actually reading my author's notes aha and good bye for now :)**


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